


Seven Stages

by fragilecapricornpanic



Series: Misc UA [7]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Confused Luther Hargreeves, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Missing Scene, Number Five | The Boy is So Done, One Shot, POV Alternating, Season/Series 02, Soft Luther Hargreeves, Stressed Number Five | The Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilecapricornpanic/pseuds/fragilecapricornpanic
Summary: Missing scene one shot. The car journey with Five and Luther that took place before they arrived at the Irish pub to confront older Five, in season 2 episode 8. Humor, and Five being a little asshole to Luther.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves
Series: Misc UA [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077887
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Seven Stages

**Author's Note:**

> **The _subjective_ POV switches between the brothers, depending on the paragraph**

Sufficiently hydrated and doused in talcum powder, Five marched down to the car that he’d now claimed ownership of. Five detested the adult version of himself that was currently making his way to a pub, out of pure jealousy. Whilst he was comfortably existing as an adult man, Five was trapped in this adolescent dumpster fire. There were so many hormones. “So how d-“ the rest of Luther’s undoubtedly stupid question was cut off by Five spatial jumping into the driver’s seat. 

This was precisely why nobody liked Five, why was it always Luther that had to be his assistant? Luther rolled his eyes and jogged over to the car, worried about the prospect of having to interact with two of these guys at once. One was enough. “So how do we definitely know where he is?” Luther asked when he opened the passenger door, squeezing himself into the car.

Five had to dodge out of the way before Luther could accidentally headbutt him with his enormous, monkey head. “Becau-“ Five quickly shuffled further towards the window to avoid being crushed whilst Luther sat down. “Because he’s _me,_ numb-nuts!” Irritated by Luther’s substandard intelligence, Five scowled as he started the car. His family were all so moronic, every single one of them. It was viscerally painful to be in charge of these people, they were even stupider than they’d been in 2019.

“Oh yeah.” Luther chuckled, causing Five to almost snarl with exasperation. How had he already forgotten that they were the same person? This was going to be a nightmare, Five just knew that older Five would go out of his way to make this whole ordeal insufferable for everyone involved. If things went to shit, Five intended to kill older Five... meaning vice versa too. “What did you say the seven stages were?” Luther had the nerve to ask.

With Elliot’s notepad and pen, Luther jotted down seven bullet points in preparation for Five’s spiel. “Why didn’t you write it down originally?” Five disdainfully grumbled, as if he’d given Luther any instruction to do so at the time. 

“You didn’t tel-“

“Fine. Ready? One, my.” Five looked away from the road to see if Luther was brainlessly writing this down, which he was. “Two, monkey.” Once again, Luther wrote this down without having a single active thought. “Three, brother.” This was slightly alarming, perhaps the pummelling Luther took in that fight had left him with some kind of traumatic brain injury. “Four, is.” The sound of the pen on paper continued. “Five, an.” If he doesn’t notice by this next word, Five may have to get him checked over by a physician. “Six, imbecile.”

Just after Luther wrote the letter b, he realised that he should’ve been paying attention to what he was writing. He was too stressed by the impending insanity, his brain had gone into complete autopilot. Worrying about how catastrophic this plan was had taken precedence in his thoughts. “I can’t be your spotter if I can’t remember the stages.” Luther tore the note from the pad and scrunched it up, tossing it out of the window. 

“Fine.” Five sighed, accepting that Luther was uncharacteristically right about something. “One, denial... Two, itching... Three, excessive thirst and urination... Four, excessive gas...” Luther made a noise of childish amusement. “Five, acute paranoia... Six, uncontrolled perspiration... Seven, homicidal rage.” 

To signify its importance, Luther underlined number seven several times. He didn’t like the sound of that one, Five was dangerous enough on any given day. “Will he get paradox psychosis, too?” Luther mumbled, scanning the list over and over again in an effort to memorize it. There were too many numbers, no wonder dad hadn’t named the seven of them. 

“He’s me, Luther. What do you think?” Five retorted, anxiously shuffling in his seat. They had to get that goddamn briefcase, the fate of the world depended on it. Once they travel back to 2019, they’d have to murder their doppelgängers from that timeline. That was a slight complication, which Luther didn’t have to be made aware of. He’d been given all of the necessary information to come to that conclusion by himself, but was too dim-witted to do so.

Why was Five acting like this was such an ordinary occurrence that Luther should just intrinsically know how it all worked? “What does adult you look like?” They should’ve brought one of Elliot’s cameras, Luther could’ve shown their other siblings how Five will look when he grows up. Luther was anticipating older Five also wearing the academy uniform, despite knowing that wasn’t possible. It felt like Five was physically incapable of wearing any other outfit.

“Like me, but older.” Five deadpanned, cursing the heavy traffic. They’d set off with time to spare, they weren’t going to miss other Five - it was just inconvenient to be trapped in a confined space with Luther. He smelled like what could only be described as a well groomed gorilla, and that wasn’t even taking the farting into account. “I had grey hair and a moustache.” Five summed up his former self, waiting for Luther to make some kind of negative comment about the facial hair.

“A _moustache?_ ” Luther repeated in disbelief, receiving an angered look in response. It really was a shame that they hadn’t brought a camera, everyone would find the moustache highly entertaining. Diego and Klaus would love this. “How tall is he?” 

“Why, are you gonna do a drawing of me on there too?” Five pointed at Elliot’s notepad, half expecting to genuinely see said drawing when he glanced down. Didn’t everybody look the same size from Luther’s height anyway? He essentially had an aerial view. Luther dejectedly closed the notepad to avoid further ridicule.

Would it have been so hard for Allison to have made herself available on literally any of the days that her power would’ve been helpful? Things would’ve been solved much more efficiently in both apocalypses if they’d actually used her power of mind control. “What’s everybody else doing today?” Five wished that he had more backup than Luther. Even with his momentous brawn, he was hardly an ideal accomplice. On the upside, he was marginally more useful than Klaus.

If Luther knew what the others were doing, he would’ve forced somebody else to accompany them. Two people who could spatial jump was bound to be an unmanageable disaster, it was going to be like herding super-powered cats. They were also both assholes, which didn’t help. “I dunno, stuff, I guess.” Luther began to search through the cassette collection, music would make this journey more relaxing for the both of them. A lullaby would be nicely age appropriate for Five.

“Stuff, Luther? They’re doing _stuff?!_ ” Five hissed, snatching the box of cassettes from Luther’s giant hands, then throwing it out of the window. There was a subsequent bang, and then a car alarm began to blare. Before they’d even gotten to the pub, Five felt like he was experiencing all of the seven stages at once. The sheer stress of these last two weeks was enough to push him into irritable insanity. “...Sorry.” Five muttered, loosening his collar in an attempt to destress. 

Fortunately, the traffic began to clear up, and they drove away from the parked car that the box of cassettes had left a dent in. Luther subtly opened the notebook to check if this kind of behaviour lined up with any of the seven stages. It didn’t, it was just Five being generally unhinged. Being the bodyguard for a notorious mobster was less turbulent than this.

The driver of the car to their side was visibly horrified to find Five behind the wheel, so Five aggressively held down the horn whilst glowering at the cowboy. “I’m _58,_ Butch Cassidy!” He’d gone through two weeks of people looking at him like that, it had gotten on his last nerve. If it weren’t for causing a car crash, Five would spatial jump into the man’s passenger seat and give him a piece of his mind.

“Okay, okay. That’s enough of that.” Luther pried Five’s tiny hand away from the horn, apologetically smiling at the cowboy. “You need to calm down.” Luther firmly insisted, wiping his hands down after touching Five’s sweaty palm. Further along the block, Luther could see an Irish pub like Five had described. Things were going to go downhill from here, as if they weren’t already bad enough.

This was as calm as anybody was capable of being when faced with this colossal shit-show. “I’m calm! I’m completely calm, Luther!” Five exclaimed, haphazardly pulling over to the nearest space. Now was time to face the music. The one positive was the chance to drink a pint of Guinness. He looked in the mirror to smarten his collar and tie, knowing that older Five would judge him for looking messy. “Don’t bring the notepad, he’ll get suspicious.” Five ordered, scratching at the back of his head. That wasn’t related to the paradox psychosis, it was totally coincidental. His head just happened to be itchy.

“Of the _notepad?_ Are you sure?” Luther kept the notebook in his hand, doubting that older Five would legitimately get suspicious because of it. 

“When will you understand that he’s me?!” the more stressed Five became, the more frequently his teenage voice broke mid sentence. His voice would be ten pitches lower by the end of today. Luther huffed and placed the notepad in the glove compartment. He was the easiest of the siblings to boss around, it was like his brain yearned for somebody to give him orders in dad’s absence. “He’s not going to trust either of us. We need to be careful.” Five muttered as he pulled up his socks. That was also a good excuse to secretively scratch his itchy knee.

“You’re not gonna trust yourself?” Luther doubtfully mumbled, to which Five said an emphatic “No.” He sounded irritated that Luther had even asked such a question. If they were starting with this level of paranoia, Luther dreaded them reaching that stage of paradox psychosis. “He’s gonna trust me though, right? I’m his brother.” 

After spending all of this time together, it astonished Five that Luther honestly believe that. “I told _Klaus_ about the 2019 apocalypse before you.” he needed to say no more, that statement illustrated his point perfectly. Looking in the mirror again, Five ran a hand through his hair to neaten it. Older Five would take any insult fuel he could get. “I feel obliged to warn you that he’s going to liken you to the love child of King Kong and the Hitler youth.” that had been the first insult to enter his mind when he’d landed on the day of their father’s funeral, so the same rules would apply to the other version of himself. “Ready?”

No, Luther wasn’t ready at all. He was the exact opposite of ready. Seven stages were just too many to remember, he couldn’t even bring his notepad.

“No, me neither.” Five agreed with Luther’s facial expression of abject trepidation, not needing a response. “We need to go in, Kennedy’s brain won’t be inside of his head for much longer.” Five murmured as he looked at his watch, bracing himself for this inevitable fight. He was determined to get his hands on that briefcase, even if he had to commit a really weird version of suicide to get it.

**Author's Note:**

> Unpopular opinion: I like Luther so I felt bad writing Five’s mean thoughts about him hahahahaha. Though to be fair, Luther is dumb. The Öga for Öga scene proved that.
> 
> Feel free to request other missing scenes from seasons one and two, or other fic ideas :)


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